


Spiral

by Anonymous



Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt, Hurt, Whump, this is just me projecting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28759551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ethan develops an eating disorder.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54
Collections: Anonymous





	Spiral

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Hope you are doing good :)
> 
> Disclaimers:  
> 1) This work contains descriptions of disordered behaviours and thoughts related to food, if you find this triggering please don't read. There are also mentions of blood and puking, but it's not very detailed.  
> 2) English is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes.  
> 3) This fic is a product of me projecting, I am simply using Ethan's online persona as a character. Some of the comments he has made about his body lately made me want to write this because it reminded me of myself. I'm not proud of it.

Ethan didn’t know exactly when it got that bad. He tried to trace back to the exact moment that got him to that place, sitting in front of the toilet after puking what he had eaten, but he couldn’t.

He had always been a fit guy, mostly because of doing gymnastics from a young age, his weight was never a problem for him. After quitting he still made sure to work out and keep a relatively healthy diet so, even though he wasn’t as in shape as before, it really wasn’t bad. Until quarantine happened.

It was just hard to keep motivated at home, he missed going to an actual gym and having a personal trainer. After 8 months of not working out and eating take-out almost every day his body had naturally changed, and he really wasn’t happy about it.

It just made him feel down, like he had lost a part of himself. Sometimes it was hard to recognize his reflection in the mirror. His relationship with his body wasn’t the best even before quarantine, but now it was something that was always on his mind. He would look at old pictures just to see how much his body had changed, even his face looked different now, he missed his old face.

After Unus Annus ended he was barely leaving the house, COVID cases were getting out of control in LA and there was no reason for him to go anywhere now that the channel had ended. It was a lot of alone time. A lot of time to think about his body image and how unsatisfied he was with it.

He decided he had enough, it was time to stop complaining and start changing it, just with home workouts and being more mindful of what he ate, nothing crazy. Now, sitting on his bathroom floor thinking about that first month he can’t point out why everything went so wrong, he was just a grown adult taking care of his health.

The bathroom floor was cold, but he didn’t want to leave until he found the answer he was looking for. He had just done the thing he promised he wouldn't do, the thing that forced him to acknowledge some things he wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet. His weight problem had turned into more than just a weight problem.

Ethan had ADHD, that was a known fact for most people in his life, they knew all about how much that impacted him and the way he navigated his day-to-day life. In the year he had spent filming Unus Annus with Mark and Amy they had really started to notice even the most unusual symptoms, like forgetting to eat. It had even become a _thing_ for them to ask Ethan if he had had anything to eat before filming because it was normal for him to just forget. Keeping a regular eating schedule was hard, figuring out what he wanted to eat, actually acting on ordering food or making it was just a hard long task that his brain didn’t want to do. And at the start of his “habit change” he saw that as an advantage.

Now, with no Mark or Amy to ask him if he had eaten anything, it was easy to forget lunch because he was responding to emails or forget dinner because he was streaming with his friends. And when he was laying down on his bed late at night and realized how hungry he was it was too late, he could just sleep it off, and it felt kind of good knowing that he avoided ordering some highly caloric meal and it would help him lose the weight.

He would still eat when he remembered to, as good as the feeling of skipping a meal started to feel to him in those late nights, not eating was completely unconscious at first. And eating was just something that he had to do, it was getting hard to enjoy the food he was putting in his body, especially if it was food that he felt like he wasn’t supposed to be eating. He felt guilty every time he ate too much, like all the effort of trying to lose weight had been lost.

One night just before going to sleep Ethan remembered he hadn't eaten dinner yet. He still had time to order food, he wasn’t even that tired yet, but he got disappointed for remembering because if he didn’t he could just sleep it off like all those other nights and wouldn’t have to deal with the possible guilt of eating too much. So he decided to ignore he remembered, to pretend like the thought didn’t even cross his mind, to skip dinner and just go to bed. That was the first time he purposefully skipped a meal.

The Ethan sitting on the bathroom floor didn’t remember that particular day because it was the first of many, the mindset of ignoring he remembered about meals led to consciously skipping them, at first using excuses like “I didn’t workout a lot today, so I’ll just not eat lunch” or “I will probably end up ordering something unhealthy so it’s better if I don’t eat dinner” and slowly progressing to avoiding as many meals as he could.

Of course he didn’t think of it as a problem, it was temporary, just until he could go out again and actually do proper workouts, or until he could see a nutritionist, or until he lost all the weight, whichever came first.

And it was a slow progression, from skipping dinner once in a while to skipping it almost everyday. His brain started associating the feeling of hunger with a personal victory, that feeling meant he was closer to his goal. And eating felt bad anyway, it made him feel like a failure, like he was never going to lose all the weight.

He was 2 months into his habit change when it started consuming his life. Exercising wasn’t even pleasurable anymore, he did it out of fear every time he ate something too caloric. That’s when he started counting his daily calorie intake, always keeping it under the recommended for his age, just to be sure.

People started noticing he was losing weight, his family mentioned it on facetime, his roommate commented on it and even his audience knew. He had talked about being unhealthy and gaining weight during streams before and everyone was happy for him, some people were worried, it was a lot of weight lost pretty fast, but Ethan wasn’t even close to his original weight before quarantine started so he said that they had nothing to worry about, he was fine.

And he believed it, he thought it was fine. Sometimes he would get scared, like when his brain started to get foggy from not eating for long periods. Those moments forced him to confront the reality that maybe it was becoming a problem, that most people didn’t do that to themselves, but it was easy to put it on the back of his mind, he was overweight and that was the only reason he was doing it, after a few months it would be over.

Seeing the results also kept him motivated at the start, it felt good to finally recognize his reflection on the mirror. Sometimes when he really wanted to order junk food he would just go to the bathroom, take his shirt off and look at his body, how he was getting better but still had a long way to go, that made him lose his appetite pretty fast.

Still sitting on the bathroom floor Ethan started to think about what went wrong that particular day, the events before what had just happened. He woke up, worked all morning, went for a jog with Spencer, streamed all night and went to bed, but that wasn’t the end of it. Laying in bed his brain was foggy and his stomach was growling, he had ignored it all day no problem, but now food was the only thing on his mind. He mindlessly went downstairs and opened the fridge, his roommate had ordered pizza.

He felt disgusting, disappointed, ashamed. The smell of the food on his hands made him nauseous, his stomach hurt so much. He cried looking at himself in the mirror, he wanted to fix it, to not feel like that anymore, he looked at the toilet feeling sick.

That’s what led him to that situation. Ethan’s brain was still trying to make sense of it, refusing to move on now that he realized how bad it had gotten. People with eating disorders did that, and he didn’t have an eating disorder.

He slowly got up, flushed the toilet and brushed his teeth. He didn’t have an eating disorder. He wiped away a few tears and washed his face. He didn’t have an eating disorder. He put on a hoodie and laid in bed. He didn’t have an eating disorder.

He didn’t. He promised he would never do that again.

-

Ethan started to eat normally and to stop exercising, just for a while, to show himself that he was in control and he could still do it. It felt good to know that he could, that maybe it wasn’t that bad all along, it was just one bad night.

Thinking about food went from his main priority to something on the back of his mind in the first week, it was proof that he was fine. In the second week he missed the feeling just a little bit, the emptiness and satisfaction of controlling such a natural instinct and seeing the results. In week three he ate pizza for the first time since... that time, and felt good, normal almost. The next day he skipped lunch, just because he wasn’t really hungry anyway and he had eaten so much pizza the night before.

The habit of looking at old pictures never stopped. It sucked that he wasn’t even close to his goal weight and now he was starting to gain weight again, all because of one stupid night, one bad decision. Was it worth it to throw all his effort away because of one mistake? He promised he wouldn’t do _it_ anymore and those three weeks had proved that he didn’t have an eating problem.

This time things progressed faster. There was no slow development, his mind had already normalized the behaviours, he got right back into it. He had a list of things he didn’t like about his body, it made him hate food, it made him hate himself for eating and it made him break his promise pretty fast.

It was just this one time, just because he ate too much, he would never do it again. He didn’t have an eating disorder.

Ethan would find himself in that situation over and over again. Ashamed and scared on the bathroom floor, making empty promises just to wake up the next day and pretend like it never happened. It was exhausting.

He was letting it affect his work, it was so hard to find energy and motivation. Every time he tried to record a video or stream it didn’t feel right, he let shame consume every aspect of his life. It was so embarrassing, he was trying so hard and didn’t even see a difference anymore, but if he tried to stop the guilt was so intense he felt like it would kill him.

It was not like he could tell anyone, it was already hard enough for him to even admit it was a problem, and in those moments he felt like he had to deal with it alone, hide it, not let anyone know. People would treat him like a child if they knew, it was so stupid, he knew it was, but he couldn’t stop.

There were good days too, days were he felt in control, that he felt like that gave him purpose and meaning. He was convinced he would reach his goal and be free to be himself again. On the good days controlling what he ate distracted him from the world, from missing his family, from all the chaos happening everywhere else. On the bad days he felt like his brain was sick and he couldn’t do anything about it.

When he was getting closer to his goal he got even more motivated. Ethan was pushing himself harder than ever, hoping that those last few pounds would make him not hate his body anymore. It was weird to think about it sometimes, he hated his body now more than he did at the start, and this was his lowest weight since the start of 2020. He tried to ignore that and focus on the final goal, no excuses.

Ethan cried when he saw the number at the scale, he imagined he would cry when he reached his goal, but turns out he was crying for a different reason, it was not relief, it was anger. He didn’t believe it. It was infuriating. Why didn’t he look like the pictures? Why did he still feel overweight? Why was he not relieved?

He lost months of his life, sacrificed so much, went through so much pain and he felt no different. In fact, he felt worse, he had fallen into a spiral of self-hate and shame and had hoped his final goal would be the thing to stop it, but it didn’t.

That was supposed to be the last day but all he could do was cry, he wasn’t free, he couldn’t even understand why he believed that in the first place. He was so angry at himself for believing it, and at his stupid body for not changing, it really was his fault. On top of that, he felt even more ashamed if that was even possible, Ethan didn’t understand why he cared so much, how many 24-year-olds cared about that kind of thing? It was his fault for caring, for believing, for looking like that.

Crying made it hard to breathe, which made him freak out even more. He recognized that feeling, he was having a panic attack. Hugging his body tightly he tried his best to quiet his mind, but it was hard, maybe he deserved to feel that way, maybe that would make him learn.

His phone started ringing, it was right next to him on his bed. The caller ID said “Mark”. He didn’t pick-up. The thought of Mark seeing him like this made him cry even more, he felt like screaming, he missed his friends.

_“Hey”_ \- Mark (9:40).

_“How are things going? Sorry I haven’t texted, you know me, I’m bad with this”_ \- Mark (9:42).

_“So, I’m gonna need some help with filming tomorrow, are you up?” -_ Mark (9:43)

Ethan threw his phone across the mattress, he didn’t want to read the texts and he definitively didn’t have the energy to answer them. Mark was a very important part of his life, he couldn’t know, he couldn’t disappoint him.

Maybe going out would help though, maybe it would put things back in perspective, maybe that’s what he needed. For now, he didn’t care, he didn’t have a plan and that made him feel like he was losing his mind.

-

Ethan knew they would take some time apart after Unus Annus. It was a long year, they even joked about ending up hating each other at the end, but what happened was the opposite, their friendship grew stronger, still, they needed some time apart.

He parked on Mark’s garage for the first time in 4 months and everything looked exactly the same, a feeling of nostalgia hit him like crazy. Ethan didn’t realize how much he missed being there, he smiled a little and stayed in his car for a while to enjoy that feeling.

Mark’s hair was so long now, it looked great on him, he would make sure to tell him that. Chica ran up to him as soon as Mark opened the door.

“Hey! Good to see you, man.” Mark said letting him in. Ethan smiled and started petting Chica.

“Ethan! We really missed you.” Amy said coming in from the backyard.

“I missed you guys too. How are things going?” Ethan replied still petting Chica.

Mark was busy, he always was, but he was especially busy now that he was working on his new project. The truth was he didn’t really need Ethan’s help, he was worried about him. For a while now people had been sending clips from Ethan’s streams, at first he thought everyone was overreacting, just because Ethan wasn’t hyperactive all the time that didn’t mean there was anything wrong, but a few self-deprecating comments started to worry him. Maybe Ethan had lost motivation, maybe he was depressed because of quarantine, Mark forgot how bad it could be to people that were spending most of their time alone, so he decided to check up on him. The thing is Mark is not very good with words, so inviting him over to help seemed a little better than a big text asking if he was okay.

Ethan looked normal, maybe a little skinnier and quieter, but normal. Mark felt relieved, their dynamic was still pretty much the same and they were having fun filming some cinematic shots for a video. Ethan loved doing that kind of thing, he really let his creativity flow and it made him forget about everything else for a second.

And then it hit him like a train.

“What do you want for lunch? I heard you’re on a diet.” Mark said looking at his phone. Ethan’s heart sunk. He was having such a good time, food was the last thing on his mind for the first time in a while and now it all came back to him.

“Uh, you can choose whatever. I’m not hungry” He replied trying not to sound too nervous. He immediately felt guilty, just the thought of food made him feel that way.

It was also hard not to compare his body to Mark’s, somehow he had gotten more fit over the last few months. And Ethan, despite all the effort, felt like he looked worse than the last time they saw each other. He felt like he could drown in shame.

When the food arrived it looked amazing, Mark had ordered burgers and fries, Ethan didn’t even remember what a burger tasted like. He had some fries just to not make it too awkward, he wished he could eat a burger like everyone else, like he used to before, but it was scary, it felt wrong.

“Are you not gonna have your burger?” Amy asked while Ethan slowly ate a fry.

“I don’t know. I’m not that hungry” He replied looking at the burger in front of him, it looked great and the smell was amazing.

“Just try it, it’s really good!” Mark said enthusiastically.

Ethan reached towards the burger, it was huge, but he didn’t have to eat the whole thing. He took a bite and Mark was right, it was _so_ good. He missed this, hanging out with friends, eating burgers, filming, having fun. This was good and he wouldn’t let his mind ruin it. Next thing he knew he had eaten half of the burger, and he didn’t feel so bad.

He felt like he had energy again, and he used it to film for the rest of the day. He came up with some pretty elaborate shots and Mark thought they looked really good. Maybe he was okay and it wasn’t such a big problem after all. He could fix it by himself.

That was definitively what Ethan needed. The drive back home lasted forever, he thought about all the stuff he wanted to do for youtube, all the ideas that he had ignored for so long because that all he could think about was food. It finally felt like things were about to change.

_“How many calories was that burger?_ ” He thought while brushing his teeth and getting ready to go to sleep. Looking at his reflection the guilt started to build up again. Ethan didn’t feel like himself, how could he look like that and still eat a burger? Why did he throw all his effort away?

At the same time he didn’t want to care about the calories, he tried to convince himself that they didn’t matter, that he had a good day and that he had reached his goal.

He knew there was nothing he could do, he had already done it, if he tried to throw up it wouldn’t help, it wouldn’t make him feel better. But he felt like he deserved it, he had to learn one way or another he wasn’t supposed to do that, that it would only make him hate himself more.

_“You are so close, just have to lose a few more to look skinny again”_ He thought kneeling in front of the toilet. “ _Then you won’t have to do this ever again”_

His throat felt like it was on fire, his hands were shaking like crazy and his vision was blurry. All he could see was the colour red inside the toilet, and then everything went black.

Ethan woke up with his phone vibrating on his pocket. His back hurt like crazy from sleeping on the floor, he reached for his phone, it was a call from Mark.

He looked up at the ceiling and started crying with the phone vibrating on his hand. His voice sounded strangled while tears streamed down his face. He needed help, not only right now to get up and clean this mess, but for everything else. His mind was too broken, he couldn’t do it alone.

Ethan picked up the phone.

“Mark, I need help” He whispered.


End file.
